Huckabee rivals unearth ethics complaints

As Mike Huckabee gains ground on his rivals for the Republican nomination, opponents have quietly begun highlighting the slew of ethics issues the social conservative faced during his political career in Arkansas.

But his career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office.

Some of the ethics complaints deal with fairly penny ante stuff, and most were dismissed.

They did, however, yield five admonitions and $1,000 in fines from Arkansas' Ethics Commission and, perhaps more significantly, a pattern that strategists for two competing GOP campaigns privately predict could become fodder for attacks playing on the culture-of-corruption theme Democrats used to pound Republicans in the 2006 midterm elections.

In fact, when Huckabee entered the presidential race in January, the Democratic National Committee was quick to highlight a couple of the ethics issues that have dogged him and urged him to “come clean about his … history of ethical lapses."

Huckabee didn’t get many ethics questions — or many tough questions about anything — as he languished at the bottom of the polls and the fundraising race through the summer.

But his surprising second-place finish in the influential August straw poll in Ames, Iowa, and strong debate performances have turned heads and started bringing more scrutiny.

Huckabee’s campaign, in a statement to Politico, said it was “suspect” that the ethics issues are being raised as Huckabee surges in the polls and said Huckabee repeatedly addressed the issues during his time as governor.

The campaign said the state ethics commission, which Huckabee sued twice, “has been misused as a weapon against Republicans” and that Huckabee “has been unfairly attacked regarding his ethics history while governor of Arkansas.”